


First Punch

by chiiyo86



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bar Room Brawl, F/F, First Kiss, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-11 16:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8998555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: Kima knows that Allura will get mad if she starts a tavern brawl, so she won't. She won't. Oh, well.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pax/gifts).



> I realized as I was working on this that I was essentially writing Matt/Matt, only that man is so good that Kima and Allura both feel like fully separate and fleshed-out characters. I really hope that I did justice to the characters and that my recipient will enjoy it. Many thanks to [coyotesuspect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coyotesuspect) for the beta work!

The only window in the room was a skylight with greasy, opaque glass, meaning that the sole glimpse Kima could get of the outside was grayness over a layer of grayness. When it started raining, she amused herself for a moment with watching the fat drops splash and shatter, but that could only keep her busy for so long. 

“We should’ve gone with Drake,” she said. “I bet he’s having fun right now. Dwarves sure know how to party.” Met with silence, she tried again: “Or we could have gone West with Sirus. I’ve always wanted to see the ocean.”

Her declaration was followed by the rustling sound of a page being turned. Irritated, Kima whirled around on her stool to glare at Allura. Her friend was sitting at the small desk tucked in a corner of the room, hunched over a book. She’d lit up a candle to assist with the meager daylight that managed to filter through the heavy rain-filled clouds, and the light made the wild strands of hair that escaped her braids glimmer like golden thread. She wore a lavender blue tunic cinched at the waist and breeches, and her slender, colorful figure contrasted starkly with the gloomy room. 

“Allie!” Kima barked, and Allura startled, almost knocking the candle over the pages of her book. She fussed over the near accident for a moment, reassuring herself that the precious document hadn’t been damaged before she deigned to acknowledge Kima.

“What is it?” she said. And then, “Did you say something?”

This was too much obliviousness for Kima to bear. “Are you kidding me?” she exploded. “I keep talking to you, but I could be another piece of furniture for all that you seem to care! I’m _bored_. I’m really, really bored and I swear I’m going to go crazy if I stay in here a moment longer!” She jumped off her stool. “That’s it, I’m going downstairs.”

Before she could get to the door, though, Allura called out her name.

“ _What_?” Kima snapped, giving her a dirty look over her shoulder. 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go downstairs,” Allura said, her elegant eyebrows knitting together in worry. “You heard what that man said: people here don’t look kindly on anyone who’s not human. Better not to draw attention to ourselves. As soon as the rain lifts up we can go on our way.”

“Hey, I can defend myself!”

“I know that, but—”

Kima waved a hand to cut her off. “I need a drink. You get back to you book. I’ll be fine.”

“Kima, wait—”

But Kima was already out of the room, and the rest of her friend’s sentence was lost when she slammed the door behind her. As she made her way through the dark, twisty corridor she could hear the rhythmic sounds of a couple fucking in another of the rooms. She huffed, feeling her cheeks grow warm—some people really had no shame. 

The hubbub from downstairs, raucous laughter and shouted conversations—sounds of people having fun—helped improve her mood considerably. The tavern on the first floor was a narrow, crowded room. Yellowish clouds of smoke clung to the low ceiling. A row of crusty human men and women were sprawled out over the bar, exchanging slurred conversation with each other. Most of the round tables occupying the rest of the room were busy with people eating, drinking, or playing cards—sometimes all three at the same time. 

Kima walked resolutely toward the bar, avoided a collision with one of the waitresses whose line of sight was probably hindered by the plate she was carrying, and then climbed up a stool so that she had a chance to be seen. The innkeeper, a hunched man in his fifties with a funny eye, stood behind the bar, wiping the same glass over and over while talking with one of his patrons. Kima waited a few minutes to be noticed before she decided that she needed a more forceful approach. 

“Give me some ale, please!” No reaction. Kima called louder, “Hey, sir!”

The innkeeper pointedly kept his back on her, even though there was almost no way he hadn’t heard her. Kima’s cheeks heated up again, this time from anger. She knocked a fist on the counter, startling some of the patrons who most likely hadn’t expected someone her size to be capable of hitting so hard. 

“Hey, Raymond,” one of them said. “I think girlie over here wants to say something.”

Raymond the innkeeper turned around, although his funny eye seemed to be fixed on a spot behind her. “What is it, missy?”

Kima bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from replying something rude. Allura would get on her case if she started a tavern brawl. “I’d like a pint of ale, please,” she asked through gritted teeth.

The innkeeper eyed her up and down. “A pint?”

“Yeah.”

The innkeeper shrugged. “I guess as long as you can pay for it.”

Kima threw a few silver coins over the counter, and Raymond pocketed them so swiftly that, if she hadn’t known better, she would’ve assumed he’d used magic. 

“A pint of ale it is!”

The pint was almost as big as Kima’s head, and the glass obviously wasn’t the one Raymond had been so lovingly wiping, but Kima wasn’t one to fuss about cleanliness and she was used to handling objects that were made for bigger people. She started sipping her drink, careful not to spill any on herself and wishing now that she’d heeded Allura’s advice and stayed in the room with her. Those people were pissing her off. But she’d stayed cooped up in that room for so long that even Allura was starting to get on her nerves— _Allie_ , who was maybe the most wonderful person in the world, although of course Kima had never told her in those terms. Or in any terms. 

The problem was maybe that she hadn’t been in a good mood since the party had split up—temporarily, but it still made her feel unfettered, deprived of purpose. The others had had various family obligations to attend to, and since neither Kima nor Allura had any family left, the two of them had stuck together for an aimless journey. It wasn’t Allura’s company that Kima minded, really, but rather the lack of things to kill.

“You seem to be handling it like a pro, little miss.”

The man who’d just talked was the one who’d drawn the innkeeper’s attention to her. He was a fairly young man—although she sometimes found age difficult to pinpoint in humans—with brown skin and dark hair, and one eyebrow split in two by a white scar. A mercenary, maybe, or at least he looked the type. And if he kept talking to Kima she’d have to pass her restlessness on him and it would get ugly. 

“What’s your name, doll?” he asked.

“None of your damn business,” she replied, wishing she hadn’t left her weapons in her room. 

The man laughed, a velvety sound that must have turned more than one girl’s head. “You’re a feisty one,” he said. “I like that.”

She ignored him, but he seemed only to draw encouragement from her silence. He inched his stool closer to hers and leaned in, as though to whisper a secret to her ear.

“Why don’t you come to my room, and we’ll—”

“Listen, asshole,” she cut him off, and then, without giving him time to see it coming, she punched him hard in the crotch. 

The man folded in on himself, his face crumpling into an expression of pain and surprise. He lurched to the side like a sinking boat and fell off the stool. The room quieted suddenly, a wind of surprise passing over the patrons and penetrating the thick haze of alcohol. 

“What did you do that for?” cried one man who was slumped at the bar. 

Indignation seemed to be sobering him up because he straightened threateningly, unfolding to his full height, which was considerable even according to human standards. Other patrons were standing up, and the ones who stayed sitting were gathering their belongings in anticipation of a fight. Raymond was putting the glasses away. Kima sighed, took another sip of her drink, and jumped down her stool. She could say to Allie that she’d tried, at least. 

The first man who’d spoken up jerked his chin in direction of the one Kima had hit and who was scrapping himself off the floor, and said, “Kay, he's a nice guy. Why d’you have to be so uppity, you half-sized—”

Kima didn’t want to wait and hear what kind of insult he managed to dredge up from his booze-addled brain, so she threw her glass at him. This time there wasn’t even a moment of stunned silence before the room erupted into chaos. One man tried to wrap an arm around her neck, but she bit his wrist until he let go. She elbowed a woman in the gut, ducked to avoid a stool swung at her. She was helped by the fact that she was used to fighting enemies bigger than she was, whereas those people weren’t used to fighting someone as small as her. She kept herself hunched, aiming low at crotches and knees, while they hit wide and high and made it easy for her to avoid most of the blows.

“You break it, you pay for it!” yelled the innkeeper over the racket, but when Kima glanced in his direction she saw that he was safely crouched behind his bar so that only the top of his head was visible.

“Someone grab that little devil!” a man shouted, and Kima had to fight against all the arms reaching for her, dealing bone-breaking blows to keep them from grabbing her.

Sweat was running down her face and blurring her vision. She found herself backed against the bar, surrounded on all sides, and for each patron she brought down another immediately took his or her place. Alcohol, boredom, and righteous indignation had brought everyone in the tavern together against her. _Damn those bloody drunkards_ , she thought as she dodged a fist. _I just wanted a drink! Damn them to the Nine Hells, and—_

Something hard hit her in the temple and she stumbled, seeing stars.

“Get her!”

She felt hands on her shoulders and immediately started thrashing around, but received another blow to the head for her trouble. Blood dripped into her eye and she had to blink a few times to clear her vision. Fury coursed through her, making her fight harder. She’d fought trolls, goddamn it! She couldn’t be brought down by a few drunks in a tavern brawl.

“Let her go!”

The clear voice cut through the heated shouts of the crowd, and a few of them paused. 

“Who the hell are you?” a woman asked.

“It doesn’t matter who I am. Just let her go, and then we’ll be on our way. No one else needs to get hurt.”

The people holding Kima down were all so much taller than her that she couldn’t see the person speaking, but she didn’t need to. She would have recognized that voice anywhere.

The woman guffawed. “No one needs to get hurt! Ha! Did you hear that, fellows?” They all started laughing.

Kima could barely hear Allura through the rumble of the crowd’s mirth. “Very well,” Allura said, sounding almost sad. “I see that you’ve made your choice.”

Laughter was cut short by a gust of wind blowing through the room. Knowing what was coming, Kima raised her arms to cover her head, but the patrons around her were either too drunk to realize the danger, or too inexperienced with magic to anticipate it, and they stared dazedly as all the objects in the room lifted in the air. Then the enchanted glasses, plates, stools and chairs flew at the tavern’s patrons and crashed into them with god-like fury, and the room erupted with cries of pain and terror. The grips on Kima relaxed and she punched her way out, keeping low so she wouldn’t get hurt from Allura’s spell. She found her friend standing in the middle of the room, her blond hair floating lightly in an unnatural breeze.

“Let’s go!” Kima told her, tugging at her sleeve. “Allie, let’s _go_.”

That broke Allura’s concentration and everything came crashing down to the floor. Not willing to give anyone the time to recover, Kima grabbed Allura’s hand and dragged her out of the tavern. It was still drizzling outside but not enough to be a bother, and they both ran like hell, splashing mud around them as they did. 

“Catch them! Don’t let them go away!” Kima heard someone shout at their backs.

“Damn it!” she swore. “Did you take my weapons with you? I think we’ll have—”

“It’s okay, I’ve got it.”

Allura made a black hole pop out of thin air, and, wrapping an arm around Kima’s waist, had them both jump into it. On the other side they tumbled on forest ground, and Kima quickly realized they were behind the inn, in the woods fringing the building. They hid in the bushes, holding their breaths, until they could hear that their pursuers had gone back inside after a lot of angry swearing. 

Allura sagged against Kima’s shoulder in relief. “Are you all right?” Kima asked. 

Her friend straightened up and pinned Kima with a glare. “Am I all right? What were you thinking? How did you get into that much trouble in so little time?”

“Hey, I didn’t start it, alright? Okay, maybe I threw the first punch, but I was just minding my own business, drinking a pint of ale, when that one guy started to harass me—calling me a doll, wanting me to get to his room…”

“He did _what_?” Allura said, her voice holding that cool, dangerous edge that so few people survived after hearing. 

Kima shrugged. “He was just a jerk, but then everyone got on my case when I put him back in his place.”

Allura pursed her mouth in doubt, but then she sighed and her shoulders sagged with it. “All right. What’s done is done, anyway. Are you hurt? Oh, you’re bleeding!”

Before Kima could protest Allura was leaning over her, her thumb brushing the cut on her forehead. Kima hissed in pain, and Allura apologized and stopped touching the wound, but kept examining it with worried eyes.

“It’s fine,” Kima said, but held herself still through the examination. “I’ve had way worse.”

“I know, believe me. But head wounds are no laughing matter. I’ll cure you.”

“Don’t waste a spell on this, it’s nothing.”

“Don’t be stupid. Now shush, and let me work.”

The steel in Allie’s voice let Kima know that she wouldn’t be swayed on the matter, so Kima didn’t put up any more protest. Being fussed over for so little made her feel silly, but it was also strangely nice, in a foreign way that made her stomach flutter. It wasn’t the first time Allura had healed her, but generally there was so much going on at the same time that it was an urgent, practical affair that neither of them thought much of. 

“It tickles,” she said stupidly, because it didn’t feel much of anything except for the sudden absence of pain. Allura smelled good; Kima didn’t usually spend a lot of time thinking about the way people smelled—probably a blessing in most cases—but there was something note-worthy about the faint hint of lavender in Allura’s scent. It was fresh, like a field of wild flowers at springtime, and, and—well, _nice_. 

“Kima?” Allura’s face was much closer from her than the spell warranted. “Your face is warm,” she said, and put a hand on Kima’s cheek as though to make sure. “Are you okay?”

“I’m a little hot, that’s all,” Kima said.

Allura frowned. “Really? I know I’m cold.”

It had stopped raining, but sitting there on the wet ground wasn’t very comfortable and it was indeed pretty cold, but Kima didn’t care at the moment. 

“I’m fine,” she said, shaking herself. “Just annoyed. What should we do about our stuff? I guess you left it in our room.”

Allura glanced in direction of the inn, although she left her hand on Kima’s cheek. Kima didn’t really want her to move it, so she didn’t make any comment. 

“I guess we could wait until it’s night and everyone’s asleep to try to get it back?”

“Okay,” Kima said. 

Most of their belongings were of the easily replaced kind, but Kima would mourn her weapons and she knew Allura would hate leaving the few books she traveled with behind. They settled for the wait, huddling against each other for warmth. Kima had laid down her cloak to shield them from the damp ground, and Allura insisted on draping herself around Kima’s smaller frame to keep her from getting too cold. The position should have felt demeaning, but Kima found that she didn’t mind. She rarely minded anything Allura did, at least not very much.

They waited for a long time as dusk progressively crept on them, dulling all colors into various shades of gray. Kima could feel Allura’s heartbeat pound into her back, and the tip of her chin dug into the top of her head. It made sitting in a cold wet forest feel warm and safe, enough that, after a while, Kima started to doze off. She was startled awake by Allura shifting positions and she sat up to attention, immediately alert.

“What is it?” she asked in a low voice in case there were enemies around.

“Nothing, I’m sorry,” Allura replied in a normal voice. “I had a cramp, that’s all. Get back to sleep.”

“No, it’s fine. You’ve been sitting like this way too long, let’s change it.”

“No, no, don’t move,” Allura said, but Kima was already shifting around and rising to her knees. That way she found herself face-to-face with Allura, and paused in that position for no reason. 

“Kima?” Allura said in a breath. 

The color of her eyes was washed out by the lack of light but Kima could see that they were wide open, as though she were startled. Kima’s face felt hot again, and she didn’t know whether she wanted to move away or get closer.

“I—it’s—” she stammered, not even sure what she wanted to get out. 

Allura smiled, a soft, tender expression that took Kima’s breath away. “Oh, Kima,” she said, and leaned in. 

The soft press of Allura’s lips against hers made Kima’s heart leap in her chest. She couldn’t move, could barely breathe, but at the same time her thoughts ran too fast, her emotions whirling around in her mind until they formed a jumbled mess that made no sense. 

Allura pulled away, looking anxious. “Was that all right? Kima? I’m sorry if I—”

Kima had no words, but she couldn’t stand the pained expression on Allura’s face so she closed the distance between them again and kissed her. Allura’s mouth was warm and pliant, and some of her silky hair caressed Kima’s face. Kima cupped the back of her neck with one hand while she let the other drift down, no destination in mind until she found the curve of Allura’s waist. Allura’s hand came to her cheek, and it was a little too cold but Kima found it soothing against her burning skin. Her heart hammered in her chest, too loud and too fast, and she felt so uncertain, so afraid, but at the same time deliriously happy in a way she wasn’t certain she’d felt before.

Eventually they pulled apart and Allura leaned her forehead against Kima’s, chuckling softly. “I can’t believe I did that!”

Kima laughed too, a little shakily. “I can’t believe you did that either.” They both remained silent for a moment, wrapped around each other. It was getting dark enough that Kima could barely see Allura. “Should we break into the inn now?”

Allura shook her head. “Let’s wait a little longer.”

Kima sat back down. “You’re right—there are probably some people still awake.”

“We have time.” Allura took Kima’s hand and tugged at it until Kima was pressed against her side. Her other hand buried itself into Kima’s unruly mane of hair, and Kima closed her eyes. “Go back to sleep,” Allura murmured. “I’ll be keeping watch.”

Emotions were wearying, and Kima very soon started to drift back to sleep propped against Allura’s shoulder, feeling sheltered and loved and the luckiest person in the world.


End file.
